The First Photo Ever

"Boulevard du Temple", a daguerreotype made by Louis Daguerre in 1838, is generally accepted as the earliest photograph to include people. It is a view of a busy street, but because the exposure time was at least ten minutes the moving traffic left no trace. Only the two men near the bottom left corner, one apparently having his boots polished by the other, stayed in one place long enough to be visible.

The coining of the word "photography" is usually attributed to Sir John Herschel in 1839. It is based on the Greek "phos" meaning "light", and "graphe", meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light".